Michael Racine is spending a miserable summer alone at home when he stumbles upon a temporary job and housing with his grandparents’ friends, Walt Marcello and Nora Blake. Walt and Nora made names for themselves in the environmental movement with their magazine, "The Earth’s Wife," and Michael believes he’s headed for an internship with them that could rival the summer activities of his far more industrious and accomplished friends. Lack of air conditioning and biking to work get old very fast for him, though, and he has trouble taking seriously Nora’s concerns about the environmental impact of golf courses and Walt’s interest in composting toilets. He gets to leave his hosts’ solar home each weekday only to be faced with turmoil and revolt among "The Earth’s Wife"’s staff. How can Michael­-or Walt and Nora-­decide on the right course of action?

A
favorite scene in my eco-comedy, Savingthe Planet & Stuff,
involves
my sixteen-year-old main character, Michael, suffering a shock when
he stumbles upon one of his employers in a restaurant. It was not the
“grilled-unpopular-vegetables-and-polenta (whatever that
was)-over-a-wood-fire type place” where Michael would have expected
to find Walt, a long-time environmental warrior and vegetarian. The
young man ends up joining the older one for a meal that ends up being
a far cry from the tofu hot dogs, whole wheat noodles with
undercooked zucchini, and peach nectar that they had been sharing up
to that point.

Saving
the Planet & Stuff is
not the only book I’ve written that includes situations constructed
around food. Food has turned up regularly in my writing throughout my
career. I didn’t set out to make meal and snack time a recurring
motif and only became aware of it after the fact. But it makes a
great deal of sense that I ended up going down that road.

I
come from a family that likes food. No, that’s not quite accurate.
Saying we “like food” suggests that I come from a long line of
discerning cooks or that maybe we maintain marvelous ethnic food
traditions. To be more precise, I come from a family that likes to
eat, and we have for generations. When we are preparing for a family
gathering, we are far less concerned with the quality of the food
we’re going to serve than we are that there be enough of it. If one
of us loses a few pounds, the rest of the family worries about our
health. And, quite honestly, when some of us lose weight, it often isbecause
we’ve been sick.

I
am just barely maintaining a normal BMI right now, but I can’t deny
my familial interest in eating. It’s there for all the world to see
in many of my children’s books, beginning with the very first, My
Life Among the Aliens.
That novel came out of my life as a mother of young boys, and the
bran muffins and underappreciated oatmeal cookies that attract alien
life forms to narrator Will’s home were based on the muffins and
cookies I made for my own kids. When Will’s family does provide him
with the kind of nourishment he longs for, you can be sure he
comments on it. He is, after all, my creation. Before heading out to
watch the Perseid showers with his parents and brother “The four of
us pack up food—good stuff, too, like buttered popcorn and salty
potato chips and brownies made of chocolate instead of carob…”
The book’s sequel, Club
Earth,
features an elaborate Thanksgiving dinner, designed (and paid for) by
Will and his brother Rob to rid their home of the beings from other
planets who had been using it as a destination vacation spot because
they actually liked Mom’s home cooking. The boys give their guests
an anti-Mom meal designed around four pounds of hot dogs (“turkey
gets so dry”), the candied portion of candied sweet potatoes, five
frozen pizzas, four cans of cooked spaghetti to which they add frozen
breakfast sausages, cheese puffs, and, as an appetizer, barbecue
chips topped with spray cheese. For dessert, they have two pies they
made themselves out of Twinkies.

In
The
Hero of TiconderogaI
offer up some ethnic cuisine, though Franco-American dishes are not
the stuff of Food Channel specials. Therese LeClerc’s mother makes
Therese’s favorites, poutine and tarte au sucre, to serve a young
visitor. The poutine, in particular, does not go over well with
Therese’s guest, Deborah Churchill. “I could see her poutine
beginning to congeal—the brown gravy was beginning to form a thin
skin and the melted cheese curds were thickening. Soon the best
moment for eating it would have passed.

“You’re
not going to leave that, are you?” I asked, horrified.”

Very
quickly Therese and her mother engage in an undignified battle for
Deborah’s uneaten portion of French fries and cheese curds covered
with pork gravy. (I love that stuff.) Therese could have
been chagrined. Instead, she looks forward to eating leftovers from
the meal after she’s finally rid of Deborah.

Even
my books like A
Year With Butch and Spikeand
Happy
Kid!,
which are set primarily in schools, have lunch room and family meal
scenes. And my first published short story for adults, Rosemary and Olive Oil, begins
in a hospital cafeteria and deals with an epiphany experienced while
eating a bag of rosemary and olive oil flavored potato chips.

No
one in my family would be at all surprised to have something like
that happen.

Gail Gauthier is the author of eight children's books, including The Hero of Ticonderoga, an ALA Notable Book, and the two volumes of the Hannah and Brandon Stories series, A Girl, a Boy, and a Monster Cat, and A Girl, a Boy, and Three Robbers, which were both selected as Junior Library Guild offerings. Her books have been nominated for readers' choice awards in six states, and published in foreign editions in Italy, Germany, France, and Japan. She has spoken in schools in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont, as well as at professional conferences. She maintains the weblogOriginal Content, where she writes about children's literature, writing, self-publishing, and time management for writers.

Win an ebook copy of Saving the Planet & Stuff!

Gail has generously offered one ebook copy of her book to one lucky winner.

How cute this book sounds a summer job or Michael while living with his grandparents. I think that you have some funny perspectives on life and I look forward to reading this book. Saving the Planet & Stuff by Author Gail Gauthier

Kinda reminded me of some of my summers at my grandmothers house, fun..LOL

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Welcome to my little square on the disco dance floor of life! It's good to have you here. Come in and dance a little boogie, shake your little booty, and get ready to talk books! My name is Aeicha and I'm a proud Supernatural and Harry Potter fangirl, and my literary soulmate is Lauren Myracle. Please email, tweet, or Facebook me (visit my Contact Me page to learn how) with any questions, thoughts, concerns, rambles, delicious cupcake, recipes.If you have a book you'd like me to review please visit my Review Policy page to learn more. I'm always interested in participating in blog tours, hosting giveaways, or conducting author and/or character interviews.

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My Rating System

Five Cupcakes:

I absolutely loved this book! It's the bee's knees, the cat's meow, the squirrel's nuts. It's the double chocolate, frosting smothered, sprinkle covered homemade cupcake on top of the cupcake tower that you crave. You MUST read this book.

Four Cupcakes:

This book is awesome! It's the pretty store bought cupcake that's almost as good as your mom's. You really should read this book.

Three Cupcakes:

This book is very good! It's the cupcake you don't mind eating, but it isn't your favorite. Read it if you have the chance.

Two Cupcakes:

This book failed to impress me. If I were on a plane and had to choose between reading this book and listening to the person next to me talk about their spoon collection, I'd go with the spoons. This is more of a bran muffin than a cupcake. Read it if you want.

One Cupcake:

No amount of frosting or sprinkles could save this cupcake. I don't recommend reading this book.